Selfless Hero

by Nicole Elliot

  “It’s not early. This is what time I go to school.”

  “Well, I haven’t been in school for a very long time, so this hour just isn’t practical for me.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Old.”

  “How old is old?”

  “Grown.”

  The girl folded her little arms across her chest.

  I was reminded of yet another reason I preferred the night shift; I was no good at working with or entertaining children; they were few and far between during the night shift.

  I sighed. “So…do you like stickers, Raya?”

  “What kind of stickers?”

  “Well, let’s see what we can find here.” I stood from my seat, trying to recall where I’d seen the nurses retrieve stickers from. I knew a stash was kept somewhere in the examining room for the children that came in. I had never needed to find the stash before though, so I’d never really paid attention to it.

  “Where’s Mommy?” the girl asked in a slightly sad tone.

  My thoughts exactly. “I’m sure she’ll be back any moment now.” I paused in my search for the elusive stickers and glanced back at the girl. Tears streamed down her face. Upon finding me looking at her, she hastily wiped her eyes.

  A lump developed in my throat at the sight of her wrists—or the marks on them, rather.

  “Raya…?” But before I could say anything more, someone drew back the curtain to our room. For a second, I thought it was the girl’s mother. But instead, Kylie Hackett peeked in at us. Our eyes instantly met for a second that felt like an eternity before Kylie shifted her gaze to the little girl.

  “How are we doing in here?” she asked.

  The little girl was still rubbing her eyes. Kylie’s brow wrinkled; she was still beautiful even with a frown on her face. I stood frozen on the spot as I watched her approach the child and kneel down before her.

  “What’s the matter, sweetheart?” Kylie asked.

  “I don’t feel good,” she said.

  Kylie glanced back at me.

  I shook my head and cleared my throat. “Raya has a fever. She’s going to need some antibiotics. Right now, we’re just waiting for her mom to return.”

  I saw it this time—the slight flash of panic that appeared on Raya’s face when I mentioned her mother.

  “I see,” Kylie said. She met my eye again, and I struggled to figure out how to discreetly indicate the marks on the child’s wrist.

  “Raya tells me that she enjoys stickers. I was just trying to find some for her, but they seem to be hiding from us.”

  “Is that so?” Kylie said, standing up. “Well, I’m sure those stickers can’t hide from me.” She winked at Raya and crossed the room toward me. “Excuse me, doctor.” I thought I detected the slightest bit of snark in her voice, but there was no time to contemplate it. She brushed past me and our arms grazed each other’s. Irrationally, my cock twitched.

  Dammit. This was getting worse by the second.

  Behind me, she opened a cabinet I hadn’t made my way to yet. When she opened it, she pulled out a jar that contained not only stickers, but lollipops as well. She turned back towards Raya with a smile on her face as she shook the jar at her. “I told you they couldn’t hide from me!”

  Raya giggled through her tears. “He couldn’t find them.”

  Kylie glanced at me. “Well, that’s because he’s a boy. You know, boys don’t always know as much as they think they do.”

  The significance of her comment wasn’t lost on me and I was forcibly reminded of how rude I’d been to her the day before. “I won’t deny that,” I said. Kylie glanced at me once again as if she could decipher the thoughts behind my words.

  “Here you go, sweetie,” she said, offering the jar to Raya. “Pick whichever ones you want.”

  Raya reached into the jar to get a green lollipop and a sticker of some kind of Disney princess.

  Kylie gasped.

  “What?” Raya said.

  But I already knew what had happened; Kylie had spotted the marks on the girl’s wrist when she reached for the sticker.

  Kylie cleared her throat. “Oh nothing,” she said. “It’s just… you remind me of someone.”

  “Who?”

  “A princess, of course. That’s how I knew you were going to pick that sticker.”

  Kylie carefully screwed the top back onto the jar and crossed the room to place it back in the cabinet. She met my eye along the way though, and I nodded, letting her know that I too had seen the marks.

  “What princess?” Raya asked.

  “Well, let me tell you all about her.” Kylie settled down into the seat I’d previously occupied. “There was once a beautiful little girl who didn’t know she was a princess,” she began. “One day, she woke up not feeling too good. And she was so afraid because she didn’t know what was wrong with her! So she ended up having to go to the doctor. When she got to the doctor, he checked the little girl’s eyes. And he looked into her ears. And then he checked her nose.” Kylie paused to wiggle Raya’s nose, making the girl giggle again. “And then he placed his hand on her forehead, and he jumped. He said, ‘Why little girl, you’re burning up! Do you know what that means?’ The little girl shook her head, so he leaned in and whispered to her, ‘That means someone has put a spell on you.’”

  Raya’s eyes widened, already riveted by the story.

  I, on the other hand, was thoroughly riveted by Kylie. Her ease at connecting with Raya was astonishing. I could easily tell that she related with patients on a personal level because she cared so much. I stood there, hating myself for the way I had spoken to her the previous day.

  And my god, was she gorgeous. I found myself staring at her lips as she spoke. They were so shapely and looked so soft. I found myself momentarily imagining how perfect they’d be around my cock…

  I shook my head, trying to clear the thought.

  “The little girl asked who in the world could have put a spell on her,” Kylie continued. “And the doctor told her, ‘Someone who is very jealous of you, because you are so young and beautiful and will one day have a handsome prince who wants to take you as his bride!’”

  “Yuck!” Raya exclaimed.

  Kylie laughed, her face brightening and those impossibly blue eyes of hers sparkling. “Oh, you won’t be saying ‘yuck’ to that in a few years!”

  “What happened next?” Raya asked, done considering whether she’d someday want a handsome prince.

  “The doctor asked the little girl if she knew anyone who wanted to hurt her, or had tried to hurt her before in the past. And the little girl—she was nervous because she was afraid she would get in trouble if she told the truth. So she decided she would have to keep it a secret. Besides, she wasn’t even sure if the person who had tried to hurt her before could do magic. So she convinced herself that she didn’t have to tell. ‘I don’t know,’ the little girl told the doctor.

  “‘I guess I’m just going to have to figure this out for myself,’ the doctor replied. But he knew he couldn’t really do it all alone. So he called a few of his friends and asked if any of them had psychic powers to figure out who had put a spell on this beautiful little girl. But unfortunately, none of them were psychic. So you know what they had to do then?”

  “What?” Raya asked.

  “They had to play detective!”

  “Like Inspector Gadget?”

  “Yes! Exactly like Inspector Gadget!”

  “Did it work?”

  “Well, the doctor and his friends, they searched all around the kingdom trying to figure out who was casting evil spells. They went from door to door, but they couldn’t find out who did it. So they started to feel discouraged and feared they would never know who hurt the little girl. And this worried them all a great deal because they hated seeing such a beautiful little princess feeling bad. They wanted her to be happy and healthy.”

  “Did they ever find the bad people?”

  Kylie exchanged a quick glanc
e with me, letting me know that she too, had caught on to the fact that the little girl asked about bad people, not a bad person.

  “Well, the little princess could see how worried the doctor and his friends were. And she saw how hard they were trying to help her. So she eventually decided that maybe she needed to go ahead and let them know who had tried hurting her before because deep down, the little girl knew that these people probably really were the ones casting spells on her. So after thinking about it for a long time, the little princess finally went up to her doctor and said, ‘I think I know who did it. I remember now!’ And she told the doctor and his friends about the bad people who had been mean to her and hurt her before. She told them that more than likely, these were the people who were jealous of her, and they had probably found ways to cast evil spells to hurt her.

  “The doctor and his friends were so happy the little princess told them, because she was right! So they found the bad people and made sure the little girl never got hurt again. And then the little girl grew up, met a handsome prince, and lived happily ever after.”

  Raya had stopped crying completely now and seemed to consider the story.

  “Raya, I want you to be brave like the little princess, okay? You have to be brave while Dr. Lewis and I figure out how to make you feel better, and make sure nobody can put any evil spells on you, all right?”

  “All right,” Raya said, nodding her head. “Can you open my lollipop for me?”

  “Of course.”

  Just as Kylie opened the lollipop, the curtain was drawn back once again. This time, it was Raya’s mother.

  “Sorry for the wait, doc,” she said in a half-hearted apology. “So, what I miss? What’s wrong with her?”

  I glanced at Kylie. “Thank you, Nurse Hackett. Can you give us a moment?”

  “Sure thing, Dr. Lewis,” she said, and then made her exit.

  CHAPTER 7

  Kylie

  “Yes, she’s seven-years-old and has suspicious markings on her wrist,” I said over the phone. “And she seemed a little bit uncomfortable with her mother. She was just here a couple hours ago. She was suffering from a bacterial infection and fever.”

  “Thank you so much for filing the report, Ms. Hackett. We will be investigating the case shortly.”

  “Okay. Thank you.” With a heavy sigh, I ended the call just as Megan entered our break room, carrying her lunch with her and looking like she wanted nothing more than for the day to end.

  “How’s it going, Megan?” I asked.

  “I was about to say it’s going too busy, but you look even more worn out than me. What’s wrong now, doll?”

  I crossed the room and sat beside her at the table. “I just had to report a case of possible child abuse. I was just on the phone with Child Protective Services.”

  “Oh no. I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah. This sweet little seven-year-old girl has scarring on her wrists. I just saw her this morning. I was assigned to help Dr. Lewis again, and he was examining her. She was brought in for her fever.”

  “It’s always hard when you see kids getting hurt. Any idea who’s abusing her?”

  “Not really, although she did seem a little uncomfortable with her mom. Her mom wasn’t even in the room with most of the time though.”

  “Where was she?”

  “I’m not sure. I didn’t get a chance to ask. She eventually returned and Dr. Lewis sent me out.”

  “Well, rest assured you did the right thing.”

  “I know. The important thing is making sure she’s going to be okay.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Guess I may as well take my lunch too. Be right back, Megan.” I stood and headed to the refrigerator to get my lunch.

  “So—you were assigned to Max again today, eh?” Megan called out to me in a teasing voice.

  I tried unsuccessfully to suppress a smirk as I made my way back over to the table with my lunch. “So.”

  She laughed. “So did the two of you behave today?”

  “We had no choice. The little girl was there.”

  “Oh sure. Blame it on her.”

  “You saw how he treated me yesterday. What else do you think contributed to his sudden ability to be cordial?”

  “The fact that he regretted how he treated you.”

  “How on earth do you know that?”

  “I ran into him in the parking lot before I left yesterday.”

  My ears perked, and I paused midway before taking a bite of my turkey sandwich. “And…?”

  “And he asked about you.”

  “Really? What did he say?”

  Megan laughed, and I had to resist the urge to slap myself for sounding like an overly excited schoolgirl. I tried to remind myself that Dr. Lewis was not my type, so I had no reason to be so concerned with what he said about me. I had already dated a handsome jerk before, so I wasn’t about to fall for another one, even if he was a successful doctor.

  Upon entering the hospital that morning, I had paused in the hallway and for the first time, took a good look at the various plaques of excellence for doctors among the hospital staff. Max Lewis had plenty of appearances on the wall. It was surprising I’d never noticed before, but I supposed I just hadn’t paid attention. Seeing all the good work he’d done over the years, I actually started to regret my own behavior a bit as well, particularly since I had more or less implied he hadn’t known what he was doing. But in my defense, he had insulted me first, so I still didn’t feel entirely too guilty about it…

  “He just asked how long you’d been working here. I told him you’d been here as long as me, and that you were one of the most dedicated nurses at this location.”

  “Umph,” I said, attempting to feign disinterest, but failing judging from the smirk on Megan’s face.

  “Speak of the handsome devil…”

  “What?”

  My question was answered by the door opening and none other than Dr. Lewis appearing. My heart skipped a beat, and I almost choked on my sandwich.

  “Good afternoon, ladies,” he said.

  “Good afternoon, doctor,” Megan said. She eyed me for a second, like a mother scolding her child to be polite. But my vocal chords didn’t seem to be working.

  Pressing his pretty lips together upon seeing that I couldn’t be bothered to speak, he gave me a curt nod before rolling up his sleeves and approaching the vending machine. My eyes trailed over his muscular arms, intrigued by the tattoos covering them…

  Until he turned around with his bottle of Gatorade in hand and caught me staring, causing me to choke for real this time.

  Megan gave me a hard thump on the back as I reached for my bottle of water. Thank goodness I hadn’t unscrewed the top yet, or I would have drenched myself.

  “Kylie.”

  I raised my eyebrows at the sound of him saying my name. My skin was on fire. He made me feel things I wished I wouldn’t.

  “Dr. Lewis?” I said.

  “Can I speak with you for a moment?”

  “Uhm…Sure,” I said. “Now?”

  “If it’s all right. It won’t take long.”

  “Okay…”

  He headed to the door and I realized he wanted me to follow him out of the break room.

  Panic-stricken, I glanced toward Megan. Her eyes were wide with amusement. “Go ahead. I’ll keep your sandwich company, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  Dr. Lewis chuckled.

  As I stood, I ‘accidentally’ kicked Megan’s foot, which only made her goofy expression grow more prominent.

  “I’ll let you get back to your lunch soon, I swear,” Dr. Lewis said, still standing in the doorway, waiting for me.

  “No, it’s fine I was done anyway,” I lied.

  I took a deep breath as I stepped out into the hall with him. To my surprise, he set off down the hall. Upon realizing I wasn’t following, he looked back at me over his shoulder.

  I recomposed myself and caught up, wondering where on earth he w
as taking me as we reached the end of the hall and rounded the corner.

  “Woah!”

  Dr. Lewis came to an abrupt halt, startled by a couple of technicians hurriedly rounding the corner, wheeling an empty hospital bed and nearly crashing into us. Instinctually, Dr. Lewis held his hand out, catching me around the waist and preventing me from slamming into the hospital bed right at the last second.

  “Sorry, doc,” one of the technicians said.

  “Slow down. The air isn’t in a hurry,” Dr. Lewis said. Realizing his hand was still on my waist, he removed it, although I felt the ghost of his touch long afterwards. A shiver went down my spine. “You all right?” he asked, running his hand through his luscious dark hair.

  I nodded. “Yeah,” I said, displeased to hear that my voice sounded too high. “Uhm…where are we going?”

  “Right here,” he said. We came to a stop at the on-call room, which was empty at the moment. He held the door open for me and I entered, suddenly feeling self-conscious about the way I walked because I felt like my hips were swaying with minds of their own no matter how much I tried to stop them.

  My heart stuttered again, this time right along with the click of the door as Dr. Lewis closed it. He shook his head. “Sorry—this day shift. I just can’t seem to think straight. I guess you could have brought your lunch here if you wanted.”

  “It’s fine. I was done.” With the worse timing ever, my stomach gave an embarrassingly loud growl. I crossed my arms over my torso, as if that would help muffle the sound. It felt like someone had lit a match over my face.

  Dr. Lewis cleared his throat, trying to disguise the fact that he was laughing at my rumbling stomach. When I could get the nerve to look up at him, I could see a smirk lingering beneath his expression. It almost made me want to turn right on the spot and leave the room.

  Why did this man make me feel so unsure of myself?

  “I called Child Protective Services,” I said, feeling desperate to fill the empty room with sensible discussion. I couldn’t take too much more of the silence in his presence. Besides, I needed an excuse for staring at him; his smoldering dark eyes seemed to be holding my gaze captive.

  He nodded, briefly looking down to the floor. The amusement on his face vanished entirely, getting replaced with barely concealed sadness. “Yeah. Thanks for that.” He looked up at me. “That’s what I really wanted to say to you. Thank you for helping out with Raya. I’m not so good with kids. I’m glad they sent up someone who is.”